England, Wales court systems set to adopt judiciary.uk domain names

England and Wales’s judicial system are all set to change their websites so that their domain names end with judiciary.uk.

Following a request from the Judicial Office and the Cabinet Office, Registry manager Nominet approved this decision of theirs.

The judiciary’s sites, which have been having the gov.uk ending till now, wanted to adopt this change to distinguish them from both the Parliament and the executive.

Court systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland are also in discussions to follow suit.

A spokesman for the Judicial Office told the BBC that the approach was not unusual as even Parliament, police and armed forces each have a second level domain.

Restricted Only judges, magistrates, tribunals and other parts of the court system will be given the provision to have a web name ending in judiciary.uk.

This move has been necessitated to ensure that the domain name acts as a badge of authenticity and also as it staves off the risk of attracting cybersquatters.

Nominet stated that the reason it allowed the proposal was to recognise the independence of the legal system.

Nominet’s senior legal counsel Nick Wenban-Smith said, "The websites will still be operated under the same sort of secure government networks, I believe, so this is really a re-labelling of something that is wrongly labelled government, and correctly labelling it as the independent judiciary."

However, Nominet has not decided to charge a registration fee for this move.